Friday, June 23, 2017

...so this guy walks into a bar on Decatur Street, picks up a copy of Offbeat, reads a review of fabulous new collection of early Clifton Chenier jawns entitled "Clifton Chenier's Rockin' Acordion..." and puts it on his (requested) Father's Day wish list.

It arrives. Sound GREAT! Sounds VERY familiar. Guy pulls out this sorta wonky "box" titled n"Louisiana Stomp" which comprises a CD of Clifton Chenier and one of Clarence Garlow. And - the repertoire overlaps about 95%. In fact the liner notes in the new collection thanks the gent who wrote the liner notes in the earlier one. OY!

Finally - BOTH collections are great. It's the great bulk of everything Clifton recorded in the 50's which includes all the material he recorded for L.A.'s Specialty label which yielded his first national hits (so the Specialty release overlaps 100% with these). So great, raw, rockin' stuff! And if you have not explored zydeco, one of the nicely exotic yet oh so familiar strains of indigenous exotic (at least to mine Polish descended sensibilities), and you wanna start from square one - this is basically it.